Another … Seiko shutter.

There is s shutter hiding somewhere under this mess …

I gotta Mamiya … and it has busted parts … so I got another Mamiya … and it also has busted parts but not the same busted parts as the other Mamiya with busted parts.

The Mamiya Magazine 35 is the camera I am talking about. It has a Seikosha MXL shutter that is not working.

A number of older Japanese cameras used this type of shutter like the Minolta Autocord … hmm, this image I took 9 years ago when I first started this blog.

Ok, so back to this Mamiya … I got one and it had a problem (yeah what else is new) with the front of the lens. The front ring dials were loose and the lens label plate was missing … the aperture was hard to move …. shutter does not fire and who knows what else is really going on under that.

Ok, so lets get going … so first remove the magazine.

To just take a look at the shutter mechanism you can get access just from the front … but probably you will need to get deeper so you might want to jump to the section where I describe taking the lens/shutter off the body.

Unscrew the front element group … there could be notches for a spanner or you might have to use a rubber tool to grip it.

The front rings are supposed to be attached to the shutter cover plate but in this case some of the screws are no longer attached … ah, now I know why the front rings wobbled.

For some reason the design has the screws on the underside … hmm, the screws must be somewhere in the shutter … well that would probably be the cause of the shutter not working properly.

The shutter cover plate has a locking D thing … so turn it to the open position and then turn the plate to mate with the cutouts.

The speed cam sits under this. Note its position on the shutter and then remove it.

Note how the various rings fit together.

Now we can see the shutter to look for those missing screws … and also clean it up.

Remove the bottom end of the high speed spring on the cocking ring.

Lift off the shutter release lever (at 8 oclock) … note the spring attached to it.

Remove the high speed spring (it is beside the red lever)

[Yeah, I forgot to take a picture] Remove the shutter cocking ring to be able to manually open/close the shutter. The leaf lever is at 11 o’clock and has a tension spring on the right side, and a flash trigger contact on the left. Move both out of the way so you can push the leaf lever an keep the shutter open.

At this point I am able to feel and see the movements of both the shutter and aperture blades. In this shutter’s case, both have a nice shiny coating of something.

Best to remove the entire shutter from the rest of the body.

… from the back, remove the long aluminum L bracket – three large screws.

Take the back cover baffle off – four screws … pull it off.

Note the two springs … easier to unscrew the central post and then remove the springs.

Unhook the spring on the right lever.

From the front remove the four large screws and pull the shutter/optic assembly from the body

Ok, back to the back … with a spanner unscrew the outer notched ring (the inner one is the rear element … you can take that off first if you want)

Pull the shutter/optic off.

The various rings and levers may fall off … if they have not, look at where/how they are positioned.

Lift off the shutter charging ring/lever.

Lift off the outer casing

Lift off the shutter release ring/lever.

Lets just get straight to the shutter blades and aperture

Unscrew the flash socket attached to the side of the shutter.

From the back remove the three large black screws (short screw is by the flash lever)

Push the shutter out …

the shutter blades should fall off if they are clean.

… note that there are 6 blades and 5 posts … the last blade sits over the first blade.

Ok, in this image the shutter lever (with the spring) is still attached as I forgot to remove it.

The aperture blades are under a cover plate.

Set the aperture wide open

Remove the three screws lift off the plate

Remove the 5 aperture blades

Mark the bottom plate so you know what position it sits at when you put it back on.

To remove the bottom plate … go to the back and remove the two screws holding the aperture ring/lever on .

Now clean up all the components of the shutter … ie. blades, retard escapement, levers … and put it all back. Now that it is clean you can check the shutter timing.

Remember … the Learn Camera Repair website has the Nat Cam course on how to repair cameras and shutters (like this one).

Hmm, B+W or colour … why not both?

I have come across an odd 35mm roll film camera … this one has interchangeable film backs.

Yeah, I am familiar with having multiple film backs when I was shooting with a Bronica SQ-A medium format camera … but seeing a 35mm rangefinder camera with this !!!???

After doing some research it appears the Kodak Ektra came first, and then the Adox 300, and then this.

What I have is the Mamiya Magazine-35. I had mentioned this model when I first wrote about Mamiya’s history. This camera was made in 1957 … though like others before, it did not last long maybe a year or two in production only.

The lens name ring is noted with Mamiya-Sekor, that indicates one of their own lens that they started manufactured after WWII at their Setagaya plant … this has a Seikosha shutter in it.

Hmm, so back to the back (Mamiya calls this the body unit). The shutter/optics unit of the camera slides up off of the body unit. The body unit has a dark slide, the is engaged when the unlock gets turned on the bottom, to keep the film from being exposed.

The film counter and rewind knob is part of the body unit, so film can be loaded/unloaded without the shutter/optics unit. Another thing I noted while reading the User Guide is that multiple exposures can be done because of the interchangeable body system.

Hmm, I would have used this to have switching between low and high speed film on the fly. Interchangeable lenses would have been great … this camera has a fixed 50mm f/2.8.

I also wanted to note that around this same time they designed the Mamiyaflex C, which is a TLR with interchangeable lenses. One of the first medium format cameras that I used was the Mamiya C330 … the last of their C series TLRs.

Another … back … again

Man, I really am going back to the beginning … seven years ago I got my first Mamiya Six.

I did some exterior cleaning … internal view/rangefinder cleaning … got knob … then I put it on the “collection” shelf.

Ok, so I decided to pull it off the shelf and take another look at it. Figure I should check out this flash delay mechanism on top of the shutter … hmm, not much to it but not the easiest thing to understand.

Two screws to take of the cover .

Hmm … no comment.

Things move but I am still not sure what it is supposed to do … oh well, put the cover back.

One of the things in my reassessing is that the shutter is not working at lower speeds. Back when I first got this camera I did not have the knowledge to understand how this shutter worked so I just could not fix it … now thanks to https://learncamerarepair.com/ I now know.

The NKS-Tokio shutter is a Gauthier type shutter.

Ok, so opening it up … unscrew some stuff on the front.

Firing the shutter I can see that the star wheel is not engaging the pallet smoothly.

I noted the spring that pushes the shutter was not sitting right under it’s shouldered screw thus impeding its tension. I took that apart and seated the spring correctly.

Ok, so now the slow speed escapement needed to be removed and cleaned.

This is when I found that the pallet lever was not attached properly, so I took it apart, cleaned it and secured it back on.

Now it engages the star wheel without sticking.

Put it all back together … fiddle with the positioning … now I have the slow speeds back to expected levels.

When I got this camera I knew that there was a missing part.

One of the spool securing knobs was missing. Lucky for me a friend made me a new one

I finished the knob on my Unimat with exception of the knurling.

Life is like a box of chocolates …

You never know what you’re gonna to get.

My last surprise was the Ricoh Wide.

The new surprise … to me it was just another broken camera that was able to pickup cheap and put back into working condition … was another Mamiya Six that I got last year.

Welllll, it appears that it was not just any Mamiya Six … it happened to be an uncommon version of the many variants that were made.

I like to make sure I describe my auctions accurately so I do a lot of searching on the web. I listed the camera as a IIa version and was questioned by Don@eastwestphoto … I did agree that it was unusual to be this version, and there was only one reference to a IIa by Dirk Spennemen but Don has not seen any other references that it did actually exist. After some discussion back and forth he figured out that I actually had a 1942 Mamiya Six IIa.

“Its a very late model lla = tear drop exposure counter, three screws in acc. shoe, f/22 on DOF scale, two strut rails, round front larger standard for a 00 shutter. Known lens & shutter of the period 1944, its a WW2 booty camera, they were never imported in the USA. Quite RARE ***** star rating in Sugiyama’s 1984 collectible Japanese camera book is for model ll, lla is even rarer! . I just found a reference to a model lla, I think maybe you are correct?”

Don has a new addition to his large Mamiya Six collection.

There be knobs !!

There was one particular “tool” that I mentioned that could be one of the most important ones to have … or have access to … and that is a friend who has a machine shop.

I had completed the work on the Mamiya Six some time ago, but sadly the camera came to me with a missing part … one of the film spool supporters.

I thought, hmmm, possibly my awesome friend Craig could machine a new one for me … and that’s what he did.

The old one is on the right.

It’ not an exact replica, but I was not expecting that, just something similar.

Hey, it works … and looking almost like it’s original is a bonus !!